


Peter and the Cave Bear

by aunt_zelda



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Animal Play, Animal Transformation, Animalistic, Canon Disabled Character, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nursing, Other, Stuttering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1538612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter is at home one night when he hears a noise outside, and goes to investigate. He finds Randall Tier, in his animal suit, wounded and whimpering. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>It’s late when Peter hears the whine from his backyard ...</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Peter and the Cave Bear

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt at the Hannibal Kink Meme: 
> 
>  
> 
> _Peter Bernardone, protector and lover of animals._  
>  Randall Tier, finds comfort in Peter. Protecting him from the monsters in the day.  
> This trust doesn't come quickly to Randall, but invevitably/slowly it does. 
> 
>  
> 
> http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/3819.html?thread=6946539#cmt6946539
> 
>  
> 
> I got kind of carried away. I wanna write more with these two at some point, there's such potential here!

It’s late when Peter hears the whine from his backyard.

Truthfully, it’s not so much a ‘backyard’ as the expanse of wilderness that surrounds his home. It’s far from any main roads, a ten minute walk to the nearest neighbor, and blissfully quiet of human sounds. Peter likes it that way. Maybe someday, if Peter’s motor skills improve a bit like the physical therapist says they might, he can venture deeper into the woods, off the grid, let the buzz of electricity and clattering of other people fade away.

Peter would like that. Peter would like that very much.

At first he thinks he didn’t really hear anything. His hearing isn’t as good as it once was. Once, Peter could hear crystal clear, pick out individual voices from across a field. Now, he has trouble distinguishing strangers by sound, and there’s a ringing in his ears every so often that makes it even more difficult.

The second whine, though, he can’t ignore. 

It sounds like a dog. A dog hurt real bad.

Peter’s forehead creases at the thought of a dog, lying hurt out there. He makes sure all of his animals are safely locked up for the night (never again, never again, never letting his friends be put into danger, never again). There is a note on the door and by his bed to remind him to double and triple check the locks at night. Some nights Peter can’t sleep until he’s been over every lock ten times and hidden the keys in his pillow. He has nightmares of waking up and finding them all gone, or worse, their bloodied bodies scattered around the barn. 

That settled, he goes out to investigate. 

The shape looks dog-like, curled up on its side by a fence post, shivering in the cool autumn air. It whimpers and whines, but it doesn’t sound like any dog Peter’s ever heard before. The creature looks to big to be one of those abandoned pups that get left along backroads like Peter’s. Peter feels a stab of fear, wondering if it’s a dog at all, or maybe a wounded wolf or a bear cub. Peter loves animals, but he knows that some are too dangerous to risk being close up with, especially when they’re wounded. (Not their fault, not their fault, just scared.)

Peter shuffles closer, crouching, hoping he looks small enough to not be considered a threat. He can run decently, but he’s not very coordinated anymore, and he might trip and fall and then the animal would be on him, clawing at his throat, and that would be the end of Peter. 

The creature notices Peter and stiffens. It growls, a low rumbling sound, not like a dog, more like a bear.

“H-hey, hey, it’s ok, it’s fine,” Peter stutters, doing his best to sound soothing. His voice is his only defense now, and it’s as broken as his body. “Shhhhhhhhh …”

The creature slumps, whimpering in pain, too weak to fight, maybe.

Peter takes another step.

Then Peter sees that the creature is a man.

A man dressed up in strange bits and pieces of some kind of costume, but a man. Peter can see his round ears, his pale skin, his hands in some kind of metal gloves. There are jeans, underneath the costume, ripped and stained.

And there is blood, so dark that it looks black in this night and the dim illumination from the light attached to the corner of the barn. 

“You hurt?” Peter sinks down in front of the man, eyes flicking up and away from the man’s eyes. “Looks bad.”

The man snarls.

“Hey, hey, whoa!” Peter holds up his empty hands. “You n-n-n-need help?” he asks, still soft, still soothing. 

The man whines, eyes wide and hopeful, clawed hands pawing at the ground nervously. 

He’s more animal than man, Peter realizes. 

Well, ok, what if he just pretends this man is a big wolf, a big hurt wolf, hurt out in the woods and needing help? (Not their fault, not their fault, hurt and scared.)

“Can you … walk?” Peter asks, not sure if ‘walk’ is the right word here.

The animal-man tries to crawl on his hands and knees and slumps, shivering from pain and whimpering, shaking his head.

“Oh-ok, that’s ok.” Peter inches closer. “Here,” he holds out his hand towards the animal-man’s face.

Peter gets a sudden recollection, a clear picture in his mind. A book, big pictures, squiggles on the sides, a blond man sticking his hand into a wolf’s mouth and tying him up with red ropes. The man had lost his hand in the next picture, and the wolf had been licking its chops.

(No, no, man is the only animal that kills to kill, that kills to hurt.)

The animal-man stares, then sniffs, curious. He licks his lips and bares his teeth, and when Peter does not flinch away, the animal-man flicks his tongue against Peter’s hand.

Peter waits until he’s done, and withdraws the hand. He reaches back slowly, carefully, and runs a hand along the animal-man’s neck and hair. 

The animal-man tenses, but lets him. He does not growl or purr, but he does not snap his teeth or attack either. 

After a few moments, Peter nods. “Ok, I … uh … I think the b-b-b-barn would be good for you, for tonight? So I can help you?”

The animal-man just stares.

“I don’t think you’d like my h-h-house.” That and Peter doesn’t trust this animal-man, not yet, and certainly not around his friends. 

The animal-man says nothing.

He does not fight when Peter hoists him up. He is slim, underneath the layers of bone and fur and metal that make up the costume. This is fortunate because Peter is wiry and not as strong as he once was, after spending months in a hospital bed. 

The animal-man whimpers pathetically when he is dragged inside the barn, and set down on a hay bale. Around them, the three horses Peter has acquired whicker nervously. 

“Hush, girls,” Peter strokes their faces briefly. “Good girls, be good.”

The animal-man watches and waits as Peter fills a bowl from the barn sink and fishes a clean rag from a basket on the wall. He whines and yelps when Peter washes his cuts and wounds, but it isn’t until Peter starts fiddling with the clasps on the costume that he reacts strongly. The animal-man snarls, flinching away and lashing out with one still-clawed hand.

Peter ducks, just in time. 

“You’re hurt!” he protests, glaring at the animal-man. “I can’t get at your worst hurts if you don’t take that off!”

The animal-man snarls, shaking his head. 

Peter crosses his arms. “W-w-w-well, I’ll just w-w-wait here, then.” He sits on another hay bale. 

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

_He is hurting and lost and so far from his den and safety. He is hurting and maybe he is dying and he had not felled the hunter. The hunter had gotten away and shot and the bullet had not stuck but it had grazed and he is bleeding and he is bleeding so much._

_He is so tired. He wants to sleep. But sleep means death._

_He sees a light. He sees a house. Maybe there is prey inside. Maybe the hunter is inside. Maybe the hunter will finish him off and mount his head on his wall as a trophy._

But no, he is not an animal, he is a man. His name is Randall Tier. He does not have claws or fangs, he wears a suit that he constructed himself. 

_No, he is an animal. A worthless, pathetic animal that could not kill the hunter and is now dying without blood on his muzzle._

_There is a shape, approaching. Prey, at any other time, but not now, when he is so weak. This prey could finish him easily._

_The prey makes sounds, soft sounds, trying to soothe. He likes the sounds, and feels soothed, but is still frightened. The prey could mean him harm._

_The prey motions, makes the sounds for ‘walk’ and he tries, but he fails, cannot even shuffle forward on his own four legs._

Two legs, not four. 

_The prey holds out its hand, right up to his muzzle._

_He stares. Does the prey not know, is it stupid prey, or young?_

_No, young prey are not so shaggy on the face. This prey is stupid, then._

_But even when he licks his chops, imagines gnawing on the prey’s offered hand, the prey does not move away. And it knows, knows the danger it is in, because he can see it in the prey’s eyes._

_It would not be difficult, to bite the prey’s hand and hold it tight. He is weak now but his jaw is strong, he imagines the taste of blood in his mouth and on his fangs, the cracks of the prey’s bones, the screams …_

_He licks the prey’s hand, tastes it, and settles. He lets the prey pet his head, stroke him. If the prey gets too daring he will bite, not hard, but he will bite. The prey withdraws before it becomes too daring, so it does not come to that._

_The prey grabs him, drags him towards the big dark shelter. He is too weak to fight, realizes that he might as well be prey himself, being dragged off to death. Perhaps this prey eats flesh too, perhaps he is going to a slaughterhouse._

_But no, the prey does not cut him into pieces. The prey lays him down on soft, prickly grass and washes his hurts with warm water. The prey wraps cloth around his wounds to make them stop dripping blood everywhere._

_Then the prey tries to take off his skin._

_He snarls, lashes out wildly. No! He will not be skinned!_

_The prey makes sounds, and he understands them, though he knows he should not, should not be able to understand the sounds of the prey._

It’s just a suit, you could die, let him see let him see …

_He whimpers and crawls over to the prey, and rolls onto his back, baring his throat and belly and balls to the prey. He has not felt this vulnerable for years, for longer than his memories are clear._

_The prey would be stupid not to take advantage of this opportunity._

_He hopes that the prey is just that stupid._

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Peter blinks when the animal-man rolls over and goes still and silent. Is this a trick? He can’t imagine anyone teaching the animal-man to ‘sit’ or ‘play dead.’ 

Peter crouches down and begins to undo the ties and latches that hold the metal and bits of bone in place. 

The animal-man whines and shivers, but he does not bite or scratch at least. Several times he moves suddenly, and Peter is tempted to flinch away, but he makes himself stay still. Sudden movements from him will only upset the animal-man, or scare him. (Not their fault, not their fault, just scared, just scared.)

He finds the main wound on the animal-man’s side, a bullet graze he suspects, bleeding, but shallow, and the bullet is long since gone. Peter fetches the first aid kit and strokes the animal-man’s hair and shoulders, trying to calm him, before pouring disinfectant onto the wound. The animal-man howls, clings to Peter’s arm, but he does not draw blood, and he does not bite. 

Peter bandages the wound, and the other smaller cuts on the animal-man’s chest. 

He’s not sure if the metal and bone suit is safe to have on over the wounds. Peter lays it next to the animal-man, gives him a final pat on the head, and shuffles away. He puts away the first aid kit and finds some horse blankets sealed in plastic zip bags. He unfurls two and brings them to the animal-man, draping them over him and his suit carefully. 

The animal-man watches Peter, barely blinking. 

“S-s-sleep well,” Peter manages, hunching his shoulders and taking a few steps towards the door. He pauses.

“P-p-please, don’t hurt the h-h-h-horses. They’re good girls.”

He still dreams of dead horses, on cold nights. Dead horses and lost friends and a jeering smile towering above him. 

Peter is tempted to stay in the barn just in case, but if the animal-man wishes him or the horses harm, there’s nothing Peter can do to stop him now. He has to trust. He has to trust that the animal-man understands that Peter bandaged him up. (Not their fault, not their fault, just scared.) 

Peter is shuffling out when he hears the animal-man speak.

“Won’t hurt them.”

It could just have been Peter’s bad hearing, though.

Peter shuffles back into his house and says goodnight to his friends. He double and triple checks the locks, slides the keys into his pillowcase, and turns out the light.

When he wakes up in the morning and goes out to the barn, the animal-man is gone. The horses are fine, no bites or scratches on their flanks.

The blankets aren’t folded, but they aren’t ripped either. 

Peter leaves out a bowl of water and a dish of rare meat that night. It’s gone by the next morning.


End file.
